Hebrews 6

REVIEW

Many Jews had professed faith in Jesus as the Messiah, but they were experiencing pressure, persecution, and hardship (Hebrews 10:32-39).

Because of this, Jews were tempted to abandon Messiah and return to the familiar safety of Judaism, with its Temple, priests, sacrifices, and traditions.

This happens to people today in a hyper grace churches where willful sinfulness is winked at - they party and drink and live immoral lives but keep going to church with little or no conviction because they’ve been taught that God doesn’t see our sin.. but the wages of sin is always death and such people often go back to orthodoxy and religious tradition.

And we are learning that returning to the old covenant system is a mistake because the law was our tutor “until” Christ. So this letter was to warn these believers not to drift from what Jesus accomplished through the cross. So in the first five chapters we’ve discovered that:

Jesus is greater than the angels, God speaks in the language of Son not the law and prophets -He’s greater than Moses and Aaron as the perfect High Priest (Heb. 1-5).

A "better” priesthood that supersedes the old covenant that continues through Ch 7.

Now sometimes the chapter and verse divisions are wrong in our bibles.

Chapter divisions were created around 1227. And verses of both the Old and New Testaments was added in 1551

Latin Vulgate in 1555.

So having said all that Hebrews 5:12-14 could actually be part of chapter 6 - so we will start there....

Hebrews 5:12–14 LSB

12-For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. Oracles are words of the prophets from judgment, messianic and salvation. Paul told the Romans of this advantage. Romans 3:1–2 “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.”

So God used the Jews to write the scripture we enjoy today is elementary knowledge. And this author wants to go deeper with his readers.

Hebrews 5:13–14 LSB

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil.

That doesn’t mean that milk is sour! Learning these principals helps us to discern good and evil. It’s where we should all begin.

Peter exhorted the church as well

1 Peter 2:1–3 LSB

Therefore, laying aside all malice [wishing ill will against someone] and all deceit [misleading] and hypocrisy [pretend or act like somebody else using Christian verbiage] and envy [Jealous resentment or grief at somebody else’s success] and all slander, [backbiting, slamming others] like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

But notice the growth is in respect to salvation. The author of Hebrews is surprised that the believing Jews misunderstand who Jesus is and exactly what His sacrifice on the cross actually did. That brings us to Chapter 6.

Hebrews 6:1–2 LSB

1-2 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of teaching about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

This is an important reminder. We need a foundation before we press on to maturity and we should continue to grow in the Lord!

I’ve noticed that most believers don’t go beyond this because discipleship has been left out of church practice.

Oh, there’s Sunday school in some churches but its not a one-on-one training.

I’m just as guilty as a pastor because I never received discipleship or had a mentor.

I had plenty of bible studies and was thrown into ministry as soon as the pastor heard I was a guitar player.

So for 43 years I had to teach myself pretty much everything.

My pastor Jon was a fantastic teacher and I learned a lot but never as a mentor to teach me what it means to be a true genuine Christian.

Just had to figure it out on my own!!

How about you?

When do we press on to maturity?

Hebrews 6:3–6 LSB

3-6 And this we will do, if God permits. For in the case of those once having been enlightened and having tasted of the heavenly gift and having become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and having tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

This is a very controversial passage and have caused many believers who perhaps slipped in their walk felt a certain fear that there’s way back for them.

They did fall for a season but they read this and assumed there is no chance to come back.

But is that what this is saying?

I do not believe so. The Greek term “fallen away” does refer to apostasy.

par-ap-ip’-to means “to fall aside or away, err, stray, lapse. This word is only used in this verse denoting an abandonment or in today’s term “deconstructing.”

But what is the only unforgiveable sin?

Flip to Mark 3 [it’s in Matthew & Luke as well]

You recall the Pharisees were claiming that Jesus was casting out demons by Beelzebul, prince of the demons!

Mark 3:28–30 LSB

“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

So according to Jesus in John 14-16 the ministry of the Holy Spirit is explained in John 14:26

John 14:26 LSB

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

John 15:26–27 LSB

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me, and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

So the only way to apostatize is to resist the drawing of the Holy Spirit and deny Christ.

If we consider the context: the Jews who were reconsidering their commitment to Christ were falling away because of persecution. I believe the author is saying it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame because if the law was a tutor to bring us to Christ, to go back to it, is to ask that Jesus to be crucified again and that’s impossible! He died once! I believe this is a hypothetical statement to help them continue to serve Yeshua.

Can a true believer who becomes a new creation in Christ actually deny Christ and lose their salvation?

First of all, have you ever sinned greatly as a new creation? Did it bother you? Did it haunt you? Gayle Erwin called the Holy Spirit “the hound dog” of heaven. We will fall - Prov 24.16

Proverbs 24:16 LSB

For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, but the wicked will stumble in calamity.

In Hebrew thought, the number seven often signifies completeness or repeated occurrence!

It means that even a godly person experiences failures, setbacks, afflictions, and stumbles in life, yet God enables them to rise again.

Let’s read the verse and look at each word:

Enlightened: φωτίζω fo-tid´-zo; to shed rays, i.e. to shine, illuminate, give light, make to see.

Tasted: γεύομαι goo-am-eye; a prim. verb; to taste; fig. to experience

Partakers: μέτοχος mĕtacŏs, a sharer; an associate:

Tasted: γεύομαι goo-am-eye; a prim. verb; to taste; fig. to experience

Powers: dunamis, doo-nameese; force ability, abundance, strength, mighty (wonderful) work.

These are real experiences, but none of them mean “born again.” They describe exposure, not conversion.

Judas is a perfect example:

He was enlightened

He tasted the heavenly gift who was Jesus and Word of God incarnate

He partook of the power of miracles

He shared in ministry but he was never transformed.

Hebrews 6:7–8 LSB

7-8 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is unfit and close to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

This is a beautiful metaphor as God pours out His truth like rain that generously falls repeatedly on the ground. Everyone hears it. Everyone receives it. No one is starved of revelation. But if ignored, you dry up and bear no fruit.

Hebrews 6:9–12 LSB

9-12 But we are convinced about you, beloved, of things that are better and that belong to salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and continuing to minister to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not become dull, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Notice how the author tries to encourage them that they are not a lost cause. God knows their work, and labor of love.

Hebrews 6:13–20 LSB

13 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply you.” 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

Hebrews 6:17–20 LSB

17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and confirmed and one which enters within the veil, 20 where a forerunner has entered for us—Jesus, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.